Labels and Packaging: Partners for Sales Success

(NPES International E-commerce Website, July 16, 2008) Label production, whatever the kind of label, is closely interrelated with the production of the packaging material itself. Consequently, developments in the field of packaging always have an impact on the labelling field or vice versa. Constant change is a feature of the self-adhesive label and the narrow web industry. Despite failures and takeovers and company numbers that, overall, are declining, the industry's turnover is increasing, the profit situation has improved to a limited degree and capacity has risen.

20% of the self-adhesive material in Europe is converted in Germany. There are some 100 manufacturers of self-adhesive labels in Germany alone and every exporting company in Europe is involved in the market. It is, in short, a highly competitive buyers' market. The sales by value of self-dhesive labels rose by 4.5% in 2006, whilst the tonnage converted rose by 3.5%.

New business fields
Products such as shrink sleeves, wrap around solutions, printed films and in-mould labels have opened up new fields of business for the self-adhesive label manufacturer. Many companies are involved with their production and it has become clear that these niches cannot be served as a sideline. Besides specialists, there are now large packaging companies building up their range of services and developing into complete product decoration suppliers. In the battle for the final customer the way in which the product is presented is becoming more and more important. Materials, forms, colors and functions can all have considerable impact and help to hold or even win market share.

Label industry
For a number of years developments have been marked by the following trends: shorter delivery times, greater diversity of type, more color, several printing processes on a single label, special effects, additional functions as well as more film instead of paper.

These developments are ongoing and require greater and greater professionalism over the entire processing and manufacturing chain. The wishes of customers are becoming more demanding and label producers are seeking both to satisfy these and to come up with new possibilities and services. This is a trend that is apparent worldwide and is being driven by the competition that exists between the customers themselves and their products.

The introduction of RFID labels has been heralded as an all-embracing trend but in fact the introduction of the technology has proceeded slowly, whilst prices have fallen more rapidly, than forecast. The 'security solutions' segment is another that has been much touted. Quite different is the situation in the drinks label business, where, for example, the self-adhesive label is winning market share that when calculated in terms of square meters translates into a considerable amount of material.

Technological innovations
Equipment and materials suppliers are constantly working on significant improvements for the manufacturers of self-adhesive labels. In the traditional printing processes makeready times, material consumption and energy usage are all being further minimized and with every innovation the limits for quality, feasibility and estimating are being pushed back.

Digital printing has established itself alongside the classic printing processes because: the inks and toners have improved and are at the same time more favourably priced, the quality of the printing has improved, the footprint of the machinery is small, energy consumption is low, the machines still have considerable scope for price reductions.

Taken overall, these are developments hat have the potential to change the way the label printer looks over the next few years. Looking to the future, self-adhesive label production will become digital, computer-controlled material processing with integrated quality control. En route to this, the processes will be investigated, broken down into time blocks and the workflow constantly optimized.